From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (http://www.cbpp.org):
On June 8, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Roberts and Ranking Member Stabenow released a bipartisan farm bill that protects SNAP. As CBPP President Bob Greenstein said in his statement, this is an important, positive step forward in our efforts to protect food assistance for millions of Americans. And it wouldn’t have happened without your work to spread the message that SNAP works in your communities and to educate policymakers in both chambers about how the House farm bill would take away food assistance from low-income households, including working families.
But we are not in the clear. This proposal still has to make it through the Senate Agriculture Committee and the full Senate without any harmful amendments to SNAP, and we still have to defeat the partisan House farm bill that would take away food assistance from 2 million Americans.
All of this is expected to move quickly: The Senate Agriculture Committee is scheduled to markup its version of the farm bill on Wednesday and bring the bill to the Senate floor as soon as next week (June 18–22). We are concerned that some amendments will be offered during the floor debate that would take away food assistance or make other harmful changes to SNAP. We need to be prepared to work hard to stop these kinds of Senate amendments. It is possible that these amendments will need 60 votes to pass, but even with that bigger hurdle for passage, we could see some amendments on issues such as work requirements, waivers, or other topics gain support from moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. In other words, we can’t take anything for granted!
Meanwhile, the House is currently expected to hold a re-vote on its harmful version of the farm bill on or just before June 22 (although this vote may be delayed).
After you read the following summary on the Senate farm bill’s SNAP provisions and our NEW talking points on the Senate farm bill, we hope you’ll do these important things:
Contact your senators directly. In calls, emails, and other direct conversations with your senators and their staff, ask your senators to vote for the Senate farm bill and reject any amendments that would take away food assistance or make other harmful changes to SNAP. Find contact information:
- Senator Robert Casey: http://casey.senate.gov
- Senator Pat Toomey: http://toomey.senate.gov
Keep up the media drumbeat. Engage the media through op-eds and letters to the editor to help them and your neighbors see the Senate farm bill as the right approach, in sharp contrast to the House bill that would take away food assistance from 2 million Americans.
Ask others to join you! Work with diverse voices in your state to echo our messages and add their perspectives — pass this message on to your friends, letting them know that the Senate bill reflects our shared values and morals about feeding the hungry, protecting food assistance for people in need.
Thanks for everything you’ve done to protect SNAP so far, especially all your hard work to stop the harmful House farm bill. Now that we’ve got a good Senate farm bill out there as an alternative, we need to double-down on our message and demonstrate strong support for the Senate’s bipartisan approach that protects SNAP.
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